Document copiers, facsimile machines, film and image scanners, optical character recognition systems, and many other devices depend on accurately capturing an image formed in a physical medium. However, the physical mediums of images often have defects, such as scratches, creases, folds, or dust on the surface of the physical medium, that reduce the potential for an accurate capturing of the image. For example, family heirloom photographs often have large creases and scratches caused by many years of mishandling. Attempts to reproduce images without correction of the defects often result in recorded images having a considerable reduction in visual appeal or image quality.
Conventional methods have been developed to attempt to correct defects found in an image. For example, in one conventional method a defective area of an image is filled in using a non-defective region of the image to produce a corrected image. Another conventional method involves manual touching-up of the image to produce a corrected image. While these conventional methods may work adequately on small defects, they often fail to properly correct extensive defects, such as large creases in a photograph caused by folding. Additionally, conventional methods often correct defects in an image without regard for the potential of the correction to cause more damage than benefit. Furthermore, correction methods vary in their effectiveness on correcting different types of defects. Conventional methods do not distinguish the improvements between different types of correction methods.